


Five Times Jim Kirk Thought His First Officer Hated Him, and One Time He Figured Out What the Hell Was Really Going On

by celebros



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, pre-into darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 04:05:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebros/pseuds/celebros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the can.</p><p>Jim can be daft, and Spock can be stubborn, and Bones and Sulu and Uhura can be, in turns, helpful and ineffective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

So okay, when Spock explains it, it’s not as if Jim can argue with his logic.  It doesn’t make sense for the two most senior officers to always have the same bridge shift.  It doesn’t make sense for Spock to spend all his time on the bridge anyway, since he’s also the science officer and they’re constantly backlogged with things to study.  It doesn’t make sense for Jim to want Spock to be there so much, either – it’s not as if they talk all the time, and it’s not as if Jim couldn’t just comm him if he needed expertise or a second opinion or some other damned thing.

But it upsets him anyway.  He thinks about it on the bridge each morning, because it used to be a point of irritation to him that his first officer always beat him there. Instead now it’s a point of irritation for Jim to find himself arriving early and still just finding the night crew. Chekov and Sulu will skitter in one after another with seconds to go until 0800, and Bones will probably find his way up by 0900 for a wry comment or two.  But there used to be a moment in the morning when Jim and Spock would make eye contact, and Jim would walk around the bridge, stopping next to each crew member – maybe so he had an excuse to stop by Spock, who had already dismissed his overnight counterpart, and get the update.

Now Jim just settles in his chair, fiddles a little bit, spins around and watches everyone doing their work for those minutes before the rest of the crew did their shift switch.  The members of the night crew are carefully monitoring things, the ensign at the science station chirping good morning, McKenna reporting their speed and time to destination and sometimes begging to know what’s being served in the mess.  The communications officer downloads anything incoming that Jim hasn’t seen onto a PADD and walks it over to him before Uhura takes over the station.

He knows what it is.  Spock’s just taking a step back.

And Jim gets it.  This is Jim’s first assignment, and he started at the top.  He’s had a lot to learn, and maybe he’s been leaning on Spock a little too hard.  It’s obvious, now that he looks at it – from the way he misses his first officer’s presence almost constantly, from Spock’s never-ending reports of work in the hydroponics bay and the other labs, from the strange realization he gets one evening in the mess hall of how long it’s been since he’s seen Spock and Uhura eating together.  Okay.  So he’s been taking up too much of Spock’s time.  Things had fallen behind, and Jim hadn’t seen it.  He’s kicking himself for it now, but there’s nothing to be done until the Vulcan catches up again, and that could be a while.

Jim does dinner with Sulu when they get off shift one night, and when they’re half-through Sulu’s comm beeps.  It’s Spock, and his message is terse but polite: “Lieutenant Sulu, at your convenience I request your presence in Lab Four,” and Kirk thinks again with melancholy how long it’s been since he’s heard such a request directed at him.

“What are you guys working on?” Jim asks, managing not to feel nosy by sounding upbeat and remembering he’s the captain.

“Nnnf,” Sulu says around a mouthful of noodles, and then, “Don’t be waiting on a breakthrough.  We were doing some experiments on the plants from Dvagha, the ones we thought might be messing up the communicators’ airwaves when we were planetside?  But I think we’ve pretty much figured out it wasn’t the plants, although they had some pretty fascinating properties.  It might have been the plants in combination with something.  Spock thinks the mineral deposits might have been likely to interact…”

“I should probably check in and see what state the labs are in,” Jim says out loud, sounding more confident than he feels.  “I know Spock’s been keeping busy with them lately; I can assign more science officers if we need.  I’d like to be able to categorize what we have left – I’m sure some of them can wait, but I definitely wanted to figure out the sealant technology from the last planet in time for our next blast to Pike and Archer.”

“Long since finished,” Sulu says, eyebrows knit.  “Captain, we’re way ahead in sciences.  Spock’s been working down there nonstop, and you know how he is.  If anything, you could reassign science officers elsewhere.  If I wasn’t helming in addition to the sciences, I’d be bored sick with some of the things Spock has us doing.”

“Ah,” Jim says, and frowns, and thinks of Spock’s last progress report – tightly worded, barely a trace of elaboration or applications.  He’d thought it was charming, at the time, the way Spock expected him to know what it meant, and he’d thought of asking for an explanation some evening they were both off – sitting over a PADD, heads bent together, Jim pointing at things earnestly and Spock so calmly explaining each bit, Jim finding some ingenious connection that one of the scientists might have been less likely to see and Spock’s eyebrow lifting.  “Remarkable,” he’d have said…

It seemed ridiculous, suddenly.  Jim exercised willpower and did not bite his lip.  “Right,” he said to Sulu, “well, let Spock know I’ll be stopping down sometime next week.”  He manages a grin.  “You know, I’ve crawled through eighty percent of this ship’s Jeffries tubes but I haven’t made it into the hydroponics bay?”

“I’ll make sure to start a rumor that you’re avoiding Spock,” Sulu says, oblivious, and Jim thinks, _maybe I should be_.


	2. Chapter 2

Jim has a chessboard set up in his ready room.  That’s been the case almost since the beginning — Uhura had outed herself as a player, and Jim had taken to challenging her as often as he could.  He’s tried to teach Bones to play, and Chekov has kicked his ass once or twice, and overall it’s been an effective tool at luring his crew into his space to get to know them one-on-one.  Sulu doesn’t play, but he and Jim have always had an easy camaraderie.  Uhura’s refusal is the new thing she can hang over him now that he knows her first name.

The thing is, Jim is _sure_ that Spock can play.  If for no other reason, because he remembers Uhura talking about the hours-long game she played with Amanda Grayson, and because Spock — the other Spock — asked if Jim knew how to play “in this universe,” and because once, his first officer had twirled the white queen between his fingers as they talked about a mission.

He’s asked before, but Spock’s always changed the subject, and Jim thinks — maybe Spock’s as freaked out by this “destiny” thing as Jim is.  But then he’s also thought that Spock stiffens a little each time Jim asks Nyota to play.  And is that because it’s Jim asking, or because it’s Nyota he’s asking?  Spock’s never been the type for jealousy.  Jim indulges himself for a while with the idea that chess might be a part of their kinky intellectual sex play, but then Nyota playing with Spock’s mom for hours gets a little weird…

What matters is, he wants to play chess with Spock.  He’s sure Spock could probably beat him, at least the first couple times, but that’s why his evasion is so perplexing.

One evening at the end of his shift, when he knows Spock isn’t going to be on until the next morning, he shoots his first officer a brief message— _You know, Uhura’s been holding off on playing chess with me, but I think it’s just because she wants to give us a go first.  She can watch if she wants some strategy clues. We’ll all be off-shift tonight at twenty-one-hundred hours – what do you say?  Mess hall?  Let me know_.  Inviting Uhura will make it less threatening, he tells himself — not a game between captain and first officer, but between equals, men who might be friends.  Men who saved one another’s lives and guarded each other back to back in the belly of the Narada, not so many months ago, he thinks.  Remembers the way Spock said, “Jim!” on the Jellyfish, urgent but without that Vulcan guardedness.  His so _human_ cheekiness when he’d suggested Jim might want his character references.

Jim’s his superior, now, Starfleet-recognized and everything.  Maybe that’s more of a barrier than he’d thought.

_He would have played chess with Pike, though_.  _If Pike had asked_.

Jim’s the last one to leave his station from that shift, but Chekov’s leaning over the science station and talking quietly with the young male ensign manning it.  He grins when the captain approaches and joins him cheerfully in the lift.  With a gently familiar routine, they make their way to the mess.

Uhura’s there with a small gaggle of the younger crewmembers; she smiles when she sees Jim and Pavel enter and gestures them over.  Jim feels himself relax a little; there’s an ease in her expression.  This could be a good evening.  And Spock isn’t there yet—he could be in the science bays, with Sulu, or meditating, perhaps.  Jim sidles up to Uhura, who’s eating a rich dark stew and drinking what looks like a beer.

“Captain,” she says, and perks an eyebrow at him.

“I asked Spock to play chess with me,” he says.  “Since you’ve so rudely refused.”

She rolls her eyes a little and takes another swig of her drink.  “You really do have a masochistic streak, you know that?”

“I know he’s all Vulcan and logical, but I know chess,” Jim says.  “I don’t expect to win the first time, but once I get a taste of his strategy… My unpredictability will come in handy, you know? The last time we battled on creativity versus logic, I kind of won.”

“Battled,” she says, a little strangely, and doesn’t meet Jim’s eyes for a moment.  Then she moves over, just slightly, making room for him on the bench.  “That isn’t what I meant,” she continues, lowering her voice.  “I meant he won’t play with you.”

“I think he might,” Jim says, settling in the offered seat.  “It’s all about the approach, for Spock, isn’t it?”

“He knows what you’re up to, though,” she says.  “He knows you by now, Captain.”

“Well, he should return the favor,” Jim says, irritation growing.  “I mean, I’m just trying to do the same with him that I’m doing with the rest of the crew, you know?  It’s not like he has to take it so seriously.  And you make it sound like it’s some grand scheme, what I’m ‘up to’—it’s a game of chess.”

“For you, maybe,” she says, and he briefly revisits his theory of kinky intellectual sex play before feeling a cold hand on his shoulder.

“Captain,” Spock says.

“Hey!” Jim says, swiveling in his seat and grinning.  Uhura shoots him a warning look.  “You got my message?”

“I did,” Spock says.  “Will you join me for a moment?”  He inclines his head toward the door, and Jim grins and nods.  They move out into the hallway together, and Jim takes Spock’s lead.  The Vulcan is walking swiftly.  When they reach an empty section of corridor, Spock turns so quickly that Jim almost runs into him.

“Captain,” Spock says, and his voice is tight and curt, beyond Vulcan control and into a soft chill.  “I find myself unable to express to you lightly my feelings on this matter, and so I must be frank.”

“Of course,” Jim says.

“I would request that you cease to make reference to Lieutenant Uhura in our communiqué, notwithstanding instances in which it is pertinent to our professional relationship.” He takes a smooth breath and meets Jim’s eyes steadily.  “I am aware that my elder counterpart must have also impressed upon you his belief that our relationship might involve activities of a nature with such overtures as you have made.  Chess.  Tea.  Sparring.  These are not activities in which I have interest, and I would request that you respect that. I am not the man my counterpart was, nor perhaps the man he wishes me to become.”

Jim feels his lips tighten as Spock is speaking, a sort of shock overtaking him, but he holds his ground.  “May I respond?” he asks.

“Of course, Captain.”

“Spock— _Commander_ —I apologize if I’ve offended you with my ‘overtures’.  I really do.  It was certainly never my intention.  What I’ve meant to convey is, we’re going to be working with one another for a long time.  On the Narada mission, I felt… I felt that we would be able to work well together in dangerous situations, which I’m sure will be plentiful over the next five-plus years.  Spock, am I doing this wrong?  I barely see you.  You’re my first officer; I need to know you.  Do you need some relief from your duties?  Do you need more help in the science lab?  Give me something here.  Something is wrong.  Something changed, since you joined the crew.  I need you to tell me: as your captain, how can I help you?”

Spock’s mouth twitches; he inhales deeply and looks over the captain’s head into the corridor behind them. “I have found our briefings to be quite sufficient.  Naturally, assuming we are subject to more strenuous conditions on future missions—and I believe we would be lax not to make such an assumption—we may require more time to coordinate strategy, but I have found it unnecessary as yet.  If I may, Captain, your attempts to familiarize yourself with the ship and its crewmembers have been quite thorough, but I would remind you that I too have been occupying myself with my duties as science officer. If you feel I have been derelict in my duties as first officer, I would request more direction as to what you require.”

“It’s not that,” Jim says, frustrated.  “Spock, you just seem… distant.  Colder.  I’m worried about you.”

“I seem more Vulcan, Captain,” Spock says. “I have no wish for games, and no need for emotional companionship. I trust that with the saturation of crew members aboard the _Enterprise_ sharing these traits with you, you will not find it necessary to request them of me any longer.”

Spock’s face breaks slightly. His eyebrows are lifted together, his eyes narrowed slightly, his mouth drawn small at the center of his face.  Jim realizes he himself is probably exhibiting some sort of vulnerability himself—some show of emotion that Spock finds distasteful.

“Well, you know now that the offer is open,” Jim says.  “I won’t ask again.  Once more, Commander, I apologize for any discomfort I’ve caused you.  Please do let me know in the future if my actions cause you offense, or if you need something more of me as your captain.  I, uh—” He takes a deep breath.

“I understand, sir,” Spock cuts him off.  “I am, as always, available should you require me for duty.”  He turns and moves away down the corridor, and Jim stands there, leaning against the wall and looking into the absence.


	3. Chapter 3

Spock’s right again.  There are missions that try them, that bring them together in the ready room for debriefings, that draw their heads closer on the bridge to consult quietly, that find them standing on either side of a bed in Sickbay in something Jim might have called companionable silence if there had been any words before or after. They say good morning sometimes if they meet in the lifts or the mess.

And then, as befits Starfleet officers, they find themselves in a cell together, six hundred feet underground, with barely a glimmer of light, no communicators, and no phasers.

“As much as I appreciate your dedication to finding me, Captain,” Spock says about fifteen minutes after Jim is thrown into the cell, “I confess I was more comfortable when I believed you to be on the bridge of the Enterprise, engineering my rescue.”

“Mister Spock,” Jim says, “that sounded alarmingly like a vote of confidence.”

“Perhaps not,” Spock answers, “as my beliefs proved baseless.”

“Ouch,” Jim says, and struggles to stand again.  He peers through the bars down the dark, bone-dry expanse of hallway, trying not to inhale through his mouth to keep all the moisture he can.  The glimmer at the end is an electrical panel, attached to a very rough elevator through which Jim can only hope Scotty and Sulu are going to appear in an hour or two.

“Have they fed you?” he asks after a long moment.  Spock’s been down her thirty hours or so.  When Jim beamed down from the Enterprise, it had been twenty-eight hours and forty-six minutes; he’s not sure how long it took for them to capture him, but it sure as hell wasn’t as long as he’d expected.

“Negative, Captain.”

“Water?”

“Negative.”

Pause.  More quietly: “Have they hurt you?”

Spock is silent.  Jim squints through the narrow cell.  He can see the slump of Spock’s body against the wall, the stiff set of his abdomen, the straight lines of his muscular legs, and a very slight sag to his neck.

“Only to subdue me when they captured me.  A creature came by shortly before I heard you upstairs.  I believe it meant to mock me, but its language was unfamiliar to me.  It was the first I had seen since my imprisonment.”

“Are you going to be able to walk, when they come for us?” Jim snorts a little.  “I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?  It’s not like I can tell them to bring down a stretcher.  And as long as they don’t leave us down here too long, I should be able to carry you up, if we need.”

Spock is silent.  “Captain,” he says, “I appreciate that you have repeatedly expressed a—a _need_ for my guidance.  But I cannot believe that even in the absence of my advice, there was no one onboard the _Enterprise_ wise enough to tell you that you were not the man to come after me.”

“Of course not,” Jim says.  “Bones was still trying to talk me out of it to the moment I beamed down. But they weren’t about to mutiny.”

“They wouldn’t have had to,” Spock says gravely. “Starfleet code has regulation for a situation precisely applicable to this one, sir.”

“8102 doesn’t count.” And now Jim’s voice is sharp.  “There are all sorts of sub-directives related to terms of release, and we didn’t _have_ those.  For all we know, you and Ensign Tram had fallen into a crevasse and broken your communicators, or your legs; there was no evidence—”

“Geological scans certainly clearly showed that our disappearance occurred nowhere near—”

“Stop trying to tell me I should have left you here!”

“Captain, if you do not trust your security officers to fulfill their duties, I am not certain—”

“You’re my first officer, Spock! Don’t tell me you offered yourself for the position thinking we were going to spend the next five years ignoring each other.  Now will you _stop_ and tell me what you’ve thought about how to get out of here? Because little as you may like it, I know a thing or two about you, and you haven’t been down here thirty hours without _some_ plan of escape—I don’t care if there are holes in it, I’ll help patch them, just tell me what I haven’t had time to notice.”

“The creatures are sensitive to heat,” Spock says, “although without their presence and ascertaining that we will be able to open the cell if we incapacitate them, the usefulness of that information seems dubious.  The two bars farthest to the right in this cell are roughly two inches farther apart than the other bars; hypothetically one of us could fit an arm through them; I might be able to fit through up to the elbow, you perhaps a little farther, which would be more useful as you would gain some range of motion.  These quarters seem to have a slight drop in temperature every six point two hours; I suspect that corresponds to some sort of chemical activity on the floor below us.  There have not been other creatures kept in these cells for a very long time; I do not believe there are any other beings in captivity at this time.  The language the creatures speak may be loosely related to an Orion trading tongue—I suspect a common-ancestor language as the linkage.”  He pauses.  “Their upper legs may be weak points, as well.”  Another pause.  “I confess I had lost my focus on acquiring such details over the course of the past few hours.  I was considering assuming a healing trance.”

Jim doesn’t answer.  He wishes he could see Spock’s face.  No matter their emotional distance, there’s something physical about Spock that Jim knows very well.  He’s seen that body do such amazing things—lifting a half-ton of metal, withstanding incredible heat, throwing itself into the way of danger.  And he knows Spock’s face.  He’s had to learn to read it, when Spock doesn’t tell him.  He’s seen uncertainty, and rage, and distrust.  He’s seen all of these things aimed at him, but maybe that’s why it seems so transparent.

He paces over to the far right bars and sticks his hand through them; as Spock predicted, he is able to fit through up until his mid-bicep, at which point he suspects any farther and he would get stuck.

“Do we have any small tools?” Jim asks.  “Stones, even?”

“Uncertain, Captain.”

Jim sighs and pulls his shirt off.

“Captain?” Spock says, his voice rising slightly.

Jim rolls his eyes at his first officer and lifts up his left arm, wincing as he works his fingernail under the edge of the heavy-duty tape.  “This is gonna hurt,” he says.  “If I cry, promise me you won’t tell Bones. He told me to use medical tape, but it was so crinkly, I was afraid if I used enough of it to actually hold, it would cut off circulation…”

He rips the tape off in one smooth stroke and yelps, then lets out a pant of pain and a low groan.  A mass of wiry blond-brown hair has detached itself from his armpit and is clumped very unpleasantly on the smooth, silvery tape.  In the center of the mass of hair and white brush of skin cells is what looks like a very small writing implement, an eraserlike bulge on one end, a tapered point on the other.  Jim grins at it, then lifts his arm again, frowning, to examine the now-hairless rectangle of skin.  It is so raw that it feels almost numb.  He lowers it again quickly—Spock needn’t know how deeply the implement’s point cut into his arm.

“There aren’t as many computer consoles in here as I’d hoped,” Jim says, “although I guess that means this is a more primitive species than I’d expected, so that could be good… but if I can get this to tickle the elevator doors down there, might be I can get someone down here.  And if so, I can trap him.”

“What is the purpose of the device you have procured?”

“It’s a laser pointer,” Jim says.  “Or it was.  A memento from Admiral Archer.  I used to pet-sit for him, and his cats were crazy about these things… Anyway, Scotty modified it for me.”

He explains the rest of his plan, in quick sentences.  Spock asks no more questions, and when Jim says, “That’s it,” he is silent.  _You’d have thought of something better, I know_ , Jim thinks bitterly.  _You’ve thought of something better half a dozen times already, to get me out of this and that. It would have been more dignified. But I didn’t have you._

He picks up his shirt from the floor, silent himself, and pulls it back over his head.  Then he moves back to the bars, leans his forehead against them for a moment, and stretches his wrist through, pointing the once-laser-pointer toward that little shimmer of light at the end of the hallway.

“Captain,” Spock says, and his voice is as thin and dry as it was when Jim first entered the cell.

“Huh,” Jim says, not looking around.

“I would like to ask you a… a favor.”

Jim withdraws his arm slowly from the bars and looks around.

“A favor?”

“I would request that you make a promise, from a captain to his first officer.”

Jim almost scrambles across the floor, kneeling down next to Spock.

“Are you more hurt than you’re letting on?” he asks.

“No,” Spock says.

“Because I swear, if you ask me again to tell Uhura you—”

“You mistake me quite,” Spock says, his voice quiet.  “Captain, it would set my mind at ease if you would promise that, in a future circumstance like this—if I am ever captured again—you will stay on the ship.”

Jim’s throat closes.  He stands just as quickly as he’d knelt and purses his lips involuntarily.

“I’m a captain, Spock,” he says.  “I can’t make such a promise.”

“Strictly speaking, you already have,” Spock answers, “when you accepted your captainship.  However.  I believe that if you undertook this vow voluntarily and directly you would be more inclined to hold to your word.  This is not your place, Captain.”

“Like fuck it’s not,” Jim says, managing not to shout.  He walks back and resumes his position, squinting to aim at the end of the hall.

“Captain,” Spock says, “I must insist.”

“You can’t insist,” Jim says.  “You won’t insist.  Because I _am_ your captain, whether you like it or not.”

That hangs between them until the elevator doors open.


	4. Chapter 4

The planet chosen for the conference is warm and dark. They beam down to the city in time to miss what was supposed to be a spectacular sunset. They'll be here three days, so Jim isn't worried in particular.

 _Enterprise_ is the last of the Starfleet envoys to arrive, and everything, their humanoid host explains as they walk through a city of empty factory stations, is prepared. Their rooms have been assigned and climate-coordinated. A light dinner is prepared for them in a common area. Tour guides are available until twenty three hundred hours. The conference will begin at oh eight hundred, and breakfast will be served there. It feels to Jim weirdly like a college visit. There is little need yet for diplomacy - the humanoid speaks flawless Basic, and seems perfectly at ease with their quiet companionship as they reach the residential district. It looks like a little villa, with quiet open single story bungalows and outside lights on.

Jim and Spock will share one room, the alien chirps. It's adjusted to be slightly warmer than a human room, for Spock's sake. It is lushly appointed, and they may help themselves to a native wine in the cabinet, made of, from what Jim gathers, a very rare sweet tropical fruit. Uhura has her own room, it's smaller, he trusts she won't mind. The security team, which will be beaming down in the morning, has another shared bungalow beyond that. Their common area is shared with officers from the _Kenosha_ and a smattering of individual representatives from farther planets. Jim exchanges glances with his officers, a _be careful_ clearly spoken. It feels good to assert that measure of command. Down here he doesn't feel like a captain.

”I would appreciate the chance to speak to Chancellor Ddaammooll tonight,” Jim tells their little host coolly but pleasantly. ”Are you able to convey such a message?”

”He will be occupied until quite late, if it please you.”

”It does please me. I trust his diligence. Please see that he is informed of my request.”

Their host leaves them in a soft common area, a hexagonal courtyard with doors opening from each small property.

”Feels Hawaiian,” Jim says, and presses his head back toward the sky. The stars aren't visible.

***

Jim remembers the ancient water towers in rural Iowa.  The industrial part of the city looks much like a cluster of them: top-heavy, all ladders and angled steel and narrow platforms high above the ground.  The starless sky is low and muzzy, and Jim feels as if he’s in a gigantic warehouse, as if all of this is indoors.  It’s too warm, not too dry and not too humid, the air with a slightly salty tang, not like the ocean but like aging machines.  He wonders what the climate beyond this sprawling quiet city is like.

They call it a city, but it’s not, not really.  It’s more like a sixteen-square-mile conference center.  There are laborers during the day, building parts for ships here, drilling for oil there, putting on a great show for diplomats and possible investors, but they ship in after dawn and out before dusk on squat trains; no one lives here.  Things are clean—and safe, the chancellor had assured him; the center is policed by a wall, squaring in at four miles a side. He has investigated and approved the conference-goers personally, and the roster has been sent also to all the membership organizations for their own record-checking.

He makes his way back to the bungalows.  The conference starts early tomorrow; there won’t be time for any awkwardness on Spock’s part, because Jim is going to sleep.  Just a glass of wine, perhaps, in the courtyard.

The room is empty.  Not bothering to turn on the lights, Jim opens the cabinet and removes a meticulously smooth and clean bottle, slightly squatter than a standard wine bottle on Earth.  The glasses have no stems or handles; Jim pours and holds it between both of his hands, as if it’s a mug of coffee.  Then, more relaxed than he’s felt in weeks, he slides the back door open and finds a place in the common area.  He sits on the ground and takes a sip of the wine.

It’s one of the sweetest things he’s ever tasted.  Not usually his preference, but it’s so unique—he twists his mouth as it hits his tongue a second time, and almost laughs.  Like the sky, it’s warm and muzzy and… more intoxicating than he’d expected.

He almost drifts off right there, but some small sound catches his attention—some hitch, a change in the low hum of background noise he almost can’t make out—and then he hears a raised voice coming from one of the other rooms.  The walls are thin.  He winces at himself—he knows what he’s about to do, and he knows that it can only possibly make the evening worse.

He moves toward the sound.  It’s Uhura, he realizes quickly.  He would have known immediately, but she sounds upset.  He rarely hears Uhura out of control, particularly out of control of her own voice.

“You don’t think I do, but I do,” she’s saying.  “It’s my job to parse languages.  You know that because you taught me.  Well, this is a language too.  I’ve known for a while that it’s upsetting you, but…”

“It is not _upsetting_ ,” Spock corrects, his voice so much quieter that Jim almost can’t hear.  “Merely… difficult.”

“Don’t do that,” Uhura says.  “Don’t take what I say and strip what’s human out of it.  Difficult is _Vulcan_ , Spock, and upsetting is _human_ , and you have _never_ been Vulcan about him.”

There is a silence.  “To hear you say that,” Spock says finally, “is upsetting.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Uhura says, desperate, “but you know what I mean.  Spock, when he barely knew you, he made you lose control in a way I’ve never seen before.  You know that.  You _know_ that.”

“He has been a source of so much conflict,” Spock says, his voice sinking, and he says something else in an almost-whisper.  Jim can’t make it out.

Uhura responds in another language, gentle, compassionate, but the words sharp.  Not Romulan, he’s sure.  Vulcan, perhaps High Vulcan.  He’s moved, somehow, by their love.  By hearing them have this conversation, so deeply wound around each other, so knowing, so honest, so imperfect.  Hearing Nyota call Spock on his bullshit.

He’s not so caught up in it he doesn’t realize they’re talking about him.

“I must concede,” Spock says.  “But he is my captain, Nyota.  Our relationship, if you would call it such, should be built on trust and respect.  Our communications must be direct and inherent.  None of these things are possible with such a lack of focus, a lack of control...  I have never been Vulcan for him, you say.  But I _must_ be, to stand it.”

Jim takes another swig of his tropical wine to cover the burning in his throat, the roaring in his ears.

“I don’t know if you can be, Spock,” Uhura says. “He’s never going to be anything other than what he is. You can’t count on…”

Jim can’t hear any more.  For all he knows, Spock will sleep in Uhura’s quarters tonight, but just in case, Jim sleeps in the shuttle.


	5. Chapter 5

Jim wakes up in Sickbay, as he is wont to do.

Everything feels cold.  Sometimes after long bedridden bouts, his hands would get cold, and his feet, and Bones would curse and warm him, first by rubbing his rough doctor’s hands back and forth across Jim’s fingers, then with electric blankets.  Sometimes he wakes with a fan blowing on his face—some fever breaking—and sometimes his lips are dry and cracked.

He’s never felt like this before.  His throat is cold, and deep inside his chest.  His groin is cold.  He feels a flash of panic slide through him, slow, sluggish.  His vision is deeply blurred.  His eyes are cold.  He’s too cold to shiver, and too cold to stay still.

With some effort, he tenses the muscles in his abdomen and tries to sit up.

Immediately—not with a clatter of Bones’s frantic feet across the floor from his office, or even an attending nurse’s quick movement, but from right beside him—five strong fingertips press against the center of his chest.  He lets go of the attempt, but he shudders with the lost effort.  He feels a groan pass between his gritted teeth.

“No,” Spock says.  His voice is strange—writhing with frustration, fury, raw emotion, but held back.  Jim can hear that, even if he can’t focus his gaze enough to see Spock’s face, can’t lift his hand to cast Spock’s aside.  “You will not damage yourself further than you already have.”  No matter how upset his voice may be, it’s so good to hear.

Jim loosens his jaw slightly.  His teeth chatter briefly, and then he opens his unfeeling lips and tries to lick them.  Nothing moves right.  He wants to ask for blankets.  For Bones’s chafing hands to warm his hands until he can bend his fingers again, or even for Spock to do it, only fuck, _everything_ is cold, and there’s only so much he can let get rubbed.

Spock’s breathing softens.  “You are cold,” he says, and _God_ , Jim has never heard such a welcome proclamation.  He tries to nod, and he can’t tell if he succeeds, but either way within seconds some weight is being draped over him—up to his thighs, then another layer up to his chest.  He wants to beg to be covered completely, to feel his breath puff back at him from a blanket right over his face, but he knows, even now, that he can’t _really_ be that cold, through and through.  This is still some symptom.  Whether of the disease or the drug, he really doesn’t know.

Spock is still there when Jim drifts back to consciousness some time later.  He can see now, and he can feel the warmth accumulating on the surface of his skin, although inside it still seems terribly cold.

“Hey,” Jim manages in a whisper.  “How long?”

“Twelve point four days since your first collapse.  Eleven point two days since Doctor McCoy relieved you of duty,” Spock says.  His tone is iron, his jaw very straight.  Jim examines it with some detachment.  It’s good to see Spock’s face.  It’s good to see all of Spock.

“Why ‘ren’t you… off captaining?”

“I am,” Spock offers.

“N’ doin’ a fine job of it, too,” Jim mumbles, still drowsy.  “’leven point two days, that’s nothing for you.  You could handle… lots more than that.”

“It has not been nothing, I assure you.”

Jim turns his head back at the sharpness in Spock’s tone.  “Ship?” he croaks, worry suddenly flooding his stomach.  “Crew?”

“Captain, you have my assurances that outside this Sickbay, the last twelve days have been uneventful.”  His phrases are bitten out, and his mouth is a tight line.  Jim watches it with a strange fascination, waiting for it to soften.

“Oh,” he says.  “Just mean… you’re… a good first officer, Spock. I trust... I mean, I c’ be gone much longer than eleven days, tha’s all.  And you’d be ready.  Be fine.”

Spock looks away, toward the doctor’s windowed office across the room.  Bones is standing in the door, his face unreadable, looking toward them.

“Doctor,” Spock says, and rises smoothly from his seat.  Without looking back at Jim, he strides from the sickbay.  The doors snap shut behind him, it seems more angrily than usual.

“Fuck ‘n’ a half,” Jim mutters, and Bones crosses the room to him.

“Talk to me,” Bones says.  “Symptoms.  I gotta know where you are, Jim.”

“Starting to get warmer…” Jim says, and Bones slides a hand under the blanket to pull Jim’s own out, rolls it between his own palms for a moment, and then sets it back down.  He sits in Spock’s chair and puts his head in his hands for a second.

“What,” Jim says.

“What the hell are you playing at, Jim?” Bones says, his voice with a strangely serious edge to the usual hostility. “‘Eleven days is nothing’? Do you have any idea what he went through?”

“Nah, just wha’ I did,” Jim says, a little irritated.  “Why’s ever’body _mad_ at me?”

Bones shook his head slowly.  “Other symptoms?” he said.  “I mean, you _seem_ lucid enough, but you haven’t always been this thickheaded.  What’s two plus two, Jim?”

“Tired,” Jim says.  “Legs cramping.  Throat’s real dry.”

“Right,” Bones says, “well, I’ll get you some water and a sedative. You can sleep some of this mess off.  The rest you’re just going to have to deal with.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Pissy tonight, Captain,” Sulu calls from the side of the gym, lifting the roll of tape and tearing off a piece with his teeth.  His knuckles are bleeding.  Every knuckle he has is bleeding, Jim notes as the haze backs away with its hands up.  Oh.

“Too rough for you, old man?” Jim pants.  “It’s okay, you can just go back to flying the ship, safe and sound up in your little–”

“Fuck off, Jim,” Sulu says.  “I’m not a damned redshirt.  I took Negotiations 2542 too.  More recently than you did, actually.”

“And from the body language of me beating the shit out of you, you’ve somehow deduced…?”

Sulu laughs.  “Fair enough,” he says.  “But I’m calling it.  Are we being reassigned to fly into a sun or something?”  He pulls up, serious.  “Bad news from home?”

“I am home,” Jim says.  “No.  Just pissy.  You had it right all along, Dr. Freud.”

“What else am I good for?” Sulu says genially.  “I don’t mean to sound like an awkward acquaintance, but if you ever need to talk…”

“All I do is talk,” Jim says.  “Are you calling it?”

“I called it about ten minutes ago.  But I decided to let you beat on me some more.  Looked like you needed it.”

“Well, thanks,” Jim said.  They’re quiet as they walk to the locker rooms.  Jim decides to use the sonic showers there, because he doesn’t particularly want to walk through the ship looking like hell.  He mock-salutes Sulu, pats him once on the back, and says, “Really, man, thanks,” then leaves Sulu in the locker bay.  He strips the rest of the way, folds his clothes into one of the little ports, and turns the heat up and the water on.

He’s got something with Sulu, he thinks comfortably as the day swirls off.  It’s always been easy between them.  The whole saving-each-other’s-lives thing came a little bit earlier and wildly more naturally to Jim and Sulu than the rest of the crew.  They know each other pretty well, too.  He wishes it was like that with more people.  The holidays are coming up, and he sees them clicking together with each other so easily, sees the camaraderie, and they respect Jim.  They do.  But they’re not his friends.  They’re not people he can curse at so easily, people to whom he can say something like, “Really, man.”

He dresses again and comes back into the locker bay and Sulu’s still there, sitting on a bench, fingertips peaked together.  Jim tilts his head and sits next to the other man.

“Not to sound like the awkward acquaintance,” Jim says.

“Yeah,” Sulu answers.  “I just wanted… I’ve wanted for a while to let you know something.  And it’s this whole territory between wanting my captain to know something and wanting _you_ to know something, and you’re bound to find out eventually, so I figured I’ll be the one to tell you.  Pavel and I are together.  Like, officially together, not awkwardly secretly fucking, so if it comes up in conversation with anyone else that’s always good to know.”

“Ha!” Jim says, and processes this for a minute.  “Man, the sexual tension on the bridge is gonna be awesome.  You and Chekov, Spock and Uhura, Hannity and Vanes…”

“Whoa there,” Sulu says, and looks strangely, wildly worried for a moment.  “Jim.  I mean, _Jim_ , seriously.  You know they’re not together anymore, right?”

“Yeah, they totally are again,” Jim says, smirking.  “I caught them at it in a Jeffries like two days ago.  I thought Vanes’s face was going to melt off.  He wouldn’t stop apologizing.  I was like, How do you tell a guy to chill out and get back to his fox?”  He catches Sulu’s expression.  “You mean Spock and Uhura.”

Sulu nods slowly.

“Shit,” Jim says, “ _shit_ , when did _that_ happen?  Have things gotten bad on the bridge and I just haven’t noticed?  I’m still assigning them to shifts together and everything, and I haven’t noticed any awkward…”

“Jim,” Sulu says, and casts around as if hoping someone else will pop out and explain it.  “Jim, they broke up more than a _year_ ago.”  He takes a deep, deep breath.  “I don’t believe this.  I don’t believe this.  You don’t _know_?”

“Nobody told me!” Jim says, half-hysterical.

“No, I don’t mean _that_ , that’s just you being an idiot as usual—I mean, there was no frosty period, they’re still good friends, so I guess if no one mentioned you wouldn’t have noticed, but Spock…”

“Spock _what_ ,” Jim says, tired of it.  “God, Spock.  Oh Christ, he told me not to talk about their relationship…” He snorts.  “I guess that makes me the biggest ass ever, I must have been tossing innuendos even after they broke up…”

“You were tossing innuendos,” Sulu sighs.  “At Spock.  After he broke up with Uhura.  God, you have _no idea_.”

“Hikaru,” Jim says, and he never says Sulu’s first name, so the man perks up.  “Tell me something useful.”

“Jim, when you were sick, after that mission to Deilan,” Sulu says, “Spock was _hysterical_.  I mean, not in public, but I… I overheard him, talking to Uhura.  And before that—when you had that reaction to that insane pollen and couldn’t keep your hands off people—he didn’t look you in the eye for _weeks_.  He flipped his dots when you were supposed to be sharing a room at the conference on Ttaattoossss, and he spent months working in the science lab instead of on the bridge, and… is this not adding up?”

“Look, I know,” Jim says heavily.  “I’ve never understood it, and I’ve tried, believe me, I’ve _tried_ to find a way to bridge the gap, but it just doesn’t happen.  I don’t know what it is, I thought we were working together so well at the beginning, but he started to get distant…” He’s rambling, or he’s about to.  He bites his lip.  “Did I do something?  Do you know, then?”

Sulu looks miserable.  He lifts up a hand and pats Jim on the cheek, slowly.  “Try again,” he says.

They’re silent for a while.  Bones’s voice arrives in Jim’s head again and scolds, _What’s two plus two, Jim?_ “Oh,” he says.  “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Sulu says.  “A _year_ , Jim?  I had no idea that you had no idea!”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Jim says, “I need to talk to Uhura.  Now.”

“Damn right you do,” Sulu says, and Jim leaves him there.

***

Jim flies to the observation lab.  She’s alone there, turned away from him, and he all but runs into her before she seems to notice he’s there.  Her eyes widen.

“ _That’s what you meant_ ,” he says, hysterical.

She pulls out two tiny earbuds and sets them on the counter behind her.  “You know,” she says, and slaps him.  “It only took you _fourteen months_!”

He ducks his head, but she’s already grimacing.  “Sorry,” she says, “I just never thought he’d be able to keep you from figuring it out, and I’ve spent the last year tearing my hair out over it and _trying_ to talk sense into him and hoping you’d figure it out…”

“No, I was an idiot, everyone’s been dancing around it and it just never—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Uhura says.  “Now.  What are you going to do about it _now_?”

***

Spock is late.  Jim would pace if he wasn’t determined to be sitting when his first officer comes in.  He would twitch if he wasn’t determined to look calm.  He would run if he wasn’t determined to be here.

Spock notices him immediately, which is good, because he means to be a surprise without being a shock.  “Captain,” his first officer says, his voice guarded.  The door slides shut behind him.

“Spock,” Jim says.  “I’d ask if you have some time to talk, but I know you do, because I’ve made sure of it.”

“Lieutenant Uhura is meeting me for dinner in approximately fifteen minutes,” Spock says.  “I had intended—”

“I’m meeting you for dinner,” Jim says.  “Right now.  Uhura’s going to message you in about five minutes cancelling, because I asked her to.”

Spock glances down at his communicator and then back up at Jim.  “I do not understand.”

“Except you do,” Jim says.  “Hell, you understand a lot better than I do.  Do you have any idea how _hard_ it has been to spend the last year thinking my first officer, the guy someone from the future told me was supposed to be my best friend, had for some reason decided to hate me?”

“I never insinuated that I—”

“I thought you hated me,” Jim says.  “I thought you _hated_ me, that you couldn’t stand to be around me, that my illogical behavior, my lack of control, were so unpalatable and infuriating that you’d actively work to not spend time with me.  Do you get that?  Was that what you wanted?”

Spock inhales.  “I found it the only acceptable option,” he said.  “What I might have wanted was immaterial.  Captain, I regret letting my personal feelings inhibit my judgment.  Since my endeavors to maintain professionalism between us have clearly failed, I request that you accept my resignation from the position of first officer.”

“Fuck that,” Jim said flatly.  “Spock.  Stop.  I know.  I wouldn’t be here if I wanted you to keep running away from this.  I’d just let you keep doing whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing.  Talk to me.  Tell me something true.”

“Captain.”

“ _Jim_.”

Spock’s face spasms.  “Jim,” he says, very softly.  “What is it that you were told?”

“That the eleven days I spent unconscious weren’t easy for you,” Jim answers, and stands, because if he stays sitting his legs are going to start trembling.  “That you didn’t want me to risk my life for you.  That you’ve been conflicted about me, and you want our relationship to be built on respect, and trust…” His voice breaks.  He’s stepping forwards, but Spock is standing still.  He hasn’t moved away from the door.  His eyes keep moving around the room, as if he’s looking for somewhere to go.

“Sit,” Jim says.  “Please.  Talk to me.”

The door beeps.  Spock straightens and turns to answer it.  It’s a yeoman carrying a wide covered tray of food.  Jim moves over and takes the tray from her, setting it down on a side table.  Spock waits until the door has shut again.

“I am not certain,” he says slowly, “that I can eat at the moment.”

“Then what do we do?” Jim asks.  “I figured, food gives us something to do while we talk this over.”

“You continue to express that intention,” Spock says.  “Captain. Jim. I know that you wish to be my friend.”

“Well, yeah,” Jim says.  “And you don’t, is that what you’re saying?”

Spock teeters slightly, then moves to the corner and pulls a second chair up to the side table on which the dinner tray waits. “Perhaps you were correct regarding the food’s purpose as a social lubricant,” he says.

“No, I think you were right about not wanting it,” Jim says.  “I thought it would give me time to think before I said anything stupid, but Spock, right now I could beg you to say something stupid.  Say anything at all.  You do want to be my friend, don’t you?”

“No,” Spock says, and lifts the lid from the food.  The smell is incredible—there’s a warm, dark rye bread and a creamy vegetable soup, maybe tomato and peppers, something dark reddish.  Jim looks at it for a moment.

“No,” Spock says again, lifting a slice of the bread and beginning to butter it fastidiously.  “I do not wish to be your friend, Jim.”

 _I’m too late_ , Jim thinks, and feels the despair acutely.  He’d forgotten, in the slow muck of the last few months, how much he wanted this.

“Or,” Spock says thoughtfully, and takes a bite of the bread, “perhaps that is imprecise.  I wish to call you Jim.”  He picks up speed.  “I wish to sit at your bedside when you are sick.  I wish to eat with you in the evenings.  To touch your hand when you are upset.  I wish to talk with you freely, not just when I request permission to do so, but as a matter of course.  I wish to remain with you, as your first officer, as your friend, yes, but Jim, as more than that.”

“It’s yours,” Jim whispers.

Spock seizes his eyes, sharp, almost angry.  “Captain,” he says, warningly.

“Call me Jim, Spock.”

“But you _are_ my captain,” Spock says. “Whether that is as we would prefer, or not… And Captain.  Jim.  This past year has not been merely an exercise in self-loathing or uncertainty.  There is protocol.  We have already… stretched the boundaries of a captain’s duty to his first officer.”

“Of my duty to you,” Jim says.  “Of your duty to me.  There are no _regulations_ for this.”  He makes a gesture between the two of them, and then grimaces and slips out of his chair, onto his knees next to Spock.  “For _this_ , I mean,” he says, and leans up, winding the fingers of his left hand in Spock’s hair, pulling him down for a quick, quiet kiss.  Their foreheads rest together for a moment, pressed by Jim’s hand.  He pulls back after a moment, withdraws his hand and searches Spock’s face.

“Technically speaking, that is true,” Spock says after a moment, his eyes still down.  “But there are procedural indications, in the Federation code, Appendix G, about relationships between superior officers and—”

“ _I don’t care_ ,” Jim says.  He’s shaking.

“You never have,” Spock whispers.

“And you’re asking me to start right now?  Is that what’s happening?”

“I would like,” Spock says, and pulls Jim back in for another kiss, his lips dry and warm.  “I would like to talk about this logically.  Sensibly.  Too much is at stake, Jim.”

“Our entire nonrelationship,” Jim agrees furiously.  “What could possibly be _worse_ than the last year?”

“If the avoidance was mutual,” Spock suggests.

“Never gonna happen,” Jim breathes, and Spock crushes Jim’s hand in one of his own, his fingers sliding over Jim’s, breathing hard.  “We could… this first, talk later?”

Spock mutters something in Vulcan, throatily.  Jim has so rarely heard him speak the language, and something about it is incredibly hot—it manages to combine a raw guttural combination of consonants with the dignified fluidity that suited Vulcan culture, and to hear that language infused with these shivering emotions—want and relief and amusement and worry, Jim thinks—

Spock pulls him to his feet.  “This?” he whispers.

“If you hadn’t been so damned stubborn,” Jim whispers, “we’d have been fucking for _months_.”

Spock’s breath quickens.  “I had not anticipated…”

“I find,” Jim says, pulling Spock’s tunic straight, “it often serves as a bonding activity.  A social lubricant, if you will.”  He kisses the corner of Spock’s mouth, and half closes his eyes.  “No pressure or anything,” he says, “I mean, I usually put out on the first date, but it’s been a long time, and technically I haven’t _asked_ you on a first date, plus technically I think that should be your responsibility after a year of being a _damn third grader_ and pulling my hair to show you liked me—”

“I do not comprehend your reference,” Spock says.

“Ask me to dinner,” Jim whispers.

“I would appreciate your company at dinner tonight,” Spock says.

“I accept,” Jim says, and uses the toe of one foot to tug off his shoe, then removes the other and hops around to pull off his socks.  Spock steps backward, toward the bed, and Jim looks at him in some mingled alarm and amusement.  “What?”

“I believe,” Spock says, “I would like to watch.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Jim says, feeling his cock twitch earnestly, the first actual lust in their clusterfuck rush.  He cups his crotch, gives the half-hardness a quick stroke up and down—positive reinforcement—and pulls his tunic and undershirt off in one sinuous movement.  Spock sits on the edge of the bed, his eyes strange, amazed.

Jim fumbles with the buckles of his pants, his knuckles brushing the tenting at their front.  There is absolutely nothing sexy about undressing, he thinks furiously, except as he slides his hands over his ass to press the pants to the floor he looks up at Spock and cocks an eyebrow as best as he can.

“You don’t want to join me in glorious undress?” he says.

“I am,” Spock says, “for the moment, content.”

“Of course you are,” Jim laughs, and kicks out of the black uniform trousers, knocking them across the tile floor toward the computer console on the wall.  His things are the only sign of disarray in the otherwise meticulously clean quarters, he notes distractedly—the lid of the dinner tray set aside on the floor, his clothes strewn across the floor.  _Perfect_ , he thinks, and then he’s standing in front of Spock wearing only his standard-issue boxer briefs, which are starkly black against his skin.

It’s not like Spock has never seen him shirtless before.  The room is warm enough, thankfully, that Jim’s nipples aren’t tightening against any chill, and Jim’s only been getting trimmer, and he’s clean-showered except for all the nervous sweat, and his armpit has never quite recovered from the tape, which he’s pretty sure Spock _didn’t_ know until just now.  Jim grins, trying to look unselfconscious, and puts his hands on his hips, striking a mock-heroic pose.

“Do you find my form aesthetically pleasing, Mister Spock?” Jim says, giving his voice a captainly boom.

“You have not finished.”  Spock’s breath sounds caught, which in turn takes Jim’s away.

“You haven’t started,” Jim complains, brushing his fingers around the band of his briefs.

“Come here,” Spock says, gesturing with a gently imperative sweep of the fingers.  Jim obeys.

“I thought I was the captain here,” Jim whispers when his body’s a foot away from Spock’s.

“You were incorrect,” Spock answers.  “I believe I asked you to dinner.”

“Which makes you certainly a gentleman,” Jim says.  “But patriarchy ought to be deader than that, don’t you think?  The date-asker doesn’t have some kind of entitlement to—”

“Kiss me.”

“All right.”

They do that for a while.  They sink back onto Spock’s bed, which is much softer than Jim would have expected.  Spock’s fingers trace up Jim’s sides, around the backs of his shoulders, back down to his chest.  One finger circles his nipple cautiously.  Jim’s eyes flutter involuntarily.  He tries to kiss Spock’s neck, but Spock pushes him back, gently, and slips a finger into Jim’s mouth.  He suckles obediently, and _that’s_ when Spock loses it.  He lets out a very soft moan, and the fingernails of his other hand scratch convulsively at Jim’s hip, scrabbling over the fabric.  Jim lifts his own hands to massage Spock’s, pulling his finger deeper in and scraping his teeth against the underside gently as he lets it slide back out, almost to the tip, and then takes it back in.  He licks the index finger in a long, slow stroke, then laps his tongue at the web between fingers.  Spock’s breath comes out in shallow puffs, his head is arced back.

“You like that a lot, don’t you?” Jim huffs.

“Very astute,” Spock says, sounding strained.  “Jim—please—I would like to—”

He begins to lift his head, but Jim cuts off his thought with another nipping suck at the finger, pressing his thumbs deep into Spock’s palm to relax the writhing tension.  “Would like to…?” he prompts.

Spock shows him.  Jim’s noted the Vulcan’s strength before, time and again, but it’s been since their one very memorable fistfight that he’s found himself on its receiving end.  Spock grasps Jim by the joint of his neck and shoulder with one hand, by his hip with the other, and flips him effortlessly onto his back in the center of the bed.  With a lithe twist of his own, Spock traces his fingers down Jim’s body until one hand is resting on either of Jim’s hips, pressing down over the surface of the black fabric.  Spock meets Jim’s eyes for one long moment, and all the hesitation and tension and fear that Jim has seen there have melted away.  The Vulcan tucks the tips of his fingers into the elastic band at the top of Jim’s underwear.

“May I?” he says.

“Yes, fuck yes,” Jim says, pinned and breathless, and Spock frees the damagingly erect shaft of Jim’s cock with a swift tug of fabric.  Jim is almost too mesmerized—but not quite—to notice the carelessness with which Spock tosses the briefs away; they land in a small puddle on the floor and then Spock is breathing on Jim’s hardness, his eyes dark and entranced.  His fingers gently circle the base of Jim’s shaft and stroke upward without releasing their contact, pulling the tight skin upward as he lowers his mouth to meet his fingers.  Jim doesn’t feel the soft lap of Spock’s tongue until his dick is entirely encircled in that warmth.  He groans with pleasure, and the fingers of Spock’s hand make the same slow, sinuous motion, sliding the skin over the surface of the cock forward, taking Jim deeper into his mouth.  Spock moves his other hand to rest against the covers of the bed, and Jim can feel him trembling.

“Nnnngh, Christ,” he moans, and holds back the orgasm that he’s already teetering against.  Spock pulls back to lick the droplets of precome from Jim’s slit, and reaches a hand down to cup his balls.  Jim lifts his head to watch, and Spock meets his eyes as he lowers his mouth excruciatingly slowly over Jim’s cock again.  He’s still in full uniform.  Science blues.  Regulation black shoes.  The whole shitstorm.  _I get to take all of that off after this,_ Jim thinks, and bites his lip.

Spock begins to move more quickly then.  His mouth is wetter than Jim would have expected, and when Jim tries to buck deeper, thrusting his hips just slightly, Spock lets out a deliciously hitched breath and holds Jim down again.  _No_ , his dark eyes insist, _I am in control_ , and Jim lets go, throws back his head and cries out, pumping fruitlessly against Spock’s iron grip before he finally feels the orgasm flood out.  His mind is dangerously blank, and he realizes his eyes are closed.  Spock’s mouth draws back, and Jim gasps, but then it returns in quick licks.  Jim doesn’t have to look down to realize that he’s lapping up the drops of come.  He shivers again, reaches down a hand to trace Spock’s cheek.

“Jim,” Spock says hoarsely, and in the sudden quiet Jim _hears_ him swallow.

“C’mere,” Jim says, gesturing limply.  “Let me see you a second.”

Spock comes to kneel next to Jim’s head and tentatively brushes a hand through a sweaty spray of his captain’s hair.

“Have you… ever done that before?” Jim asks.

“It was my first endeavor,” Spock says, and pauses, then says quickly, “I feel the need to ascertain its success, although I recognize this is illogical, considering—”

“You just swallowed its success?” Jim says.  Spock’s eyebrow quirks in a way Jim knows means he’s pleased.

“Indeed,” he whispers.

“Yeah, standing ovation,” Jim says.  “If anything on me was capable of being upright at the moment.”  He looks at Spock, still kneeling next to his head, and says, “Although it looks like you might be capable…”

Spock flushes slightly.  “I present no demands,” he says.  “If you wish, we can where we left off.  I understand that human often find themselves hungry after sexual release.  And I find myself… sufficiently lubricated.  Socially.  For conversation.”

“I think where we left off was me being naked and you still having all your clothes on,” Jim says wickedly.  “And, you know, I do find myself hungry… And I’m not sure you’re sufficiently lubricated for what I have in mind.”


End file.
